You shouldn’t have to dodge a bullet while ordering or serving a coffee at a Tim Hortons.
But that’s what happened Saturday. Welcome to Toronto 2024 when shootings are as common as traffic jams.
Stray bullets can even shower down from above on the take-out lane at Tims.
To say these regular citizens — innocently going about their lives — nearly took a bullet is not an understatement.
This single shot at the Tim Hortons at Renforth and Eringate Drs. at about 10:20 p.m. on Sept. 21 was almost double trouble for a customer and a female server at a drive-thru window.
Life sometimes can be a game of inches. A stray bullet came out of nowhere from above and just about hit one or both of them.
While Toronto sees shootings almost every day, no one was expecting this. Certainly not Jackson Ellis who went to fill a take-out order of java for him and his friends when he heard the most unusual noise.
“There was a loud thud,” he said. “It came down hard. It was strange. It was like nothing I had ever heard before.”
He had no idea what it was. Had a brick had fallen off the business? Was it a bird strike? Did someone throw a rock?
“It was a mystery,” said Ellis. “When I pulled out of the lane at Tim Hortons, I heard what sounded like metal trickling down the back window.”
He stopped the car immediately to take a look. That’s when he saw it — and did a double take.
“It was a .40-calibre bullet,” he said.
It was still mostly intact but embedded into metal near the backseat.
“Somehow a bullet came from somewhere and landed on top of my car,” he said. “It was bizarre.”
It’s not lost on the 21-year-old employee of Woodbine Nissan that if this bullet had landed one metre forward or one metre to the left, he or the woman in the Tim Hortons drive-thru window could have been hit.
Stray bullets are no different than aimed bullets. You can ask Karolina “Caroline” Huebner-Makurat’s widower and kids who growing up without their mother about that. She was shot with a stray bullet on July 7, 2023 in Leslieville.
Toronto has so many shootings nowadays, something like this doesn’t even garner media coverage if no one is killed. Citizens and politicians are used to it raining bullets.
It doesn’t shock anybody or even upset them. It’s just routine now. They have become acclimatized to the violence, and the courts let the gunmen out on bail when they’re caught, anyway.
Toronto Police’s most up-to-date records show 29 people in 2024 died from shootings and another 139 have suffered wounds. With the possible ricochet that could have struck two more people right there, it’s just pure luck there wasn’t more carnage added to those gross statistics.
Instead, it was Jackson’s new 2024 Nissan Centra that took the bullet. When you look at the hole it left in the roof, as veteran photographer Jack Boland noted, it’s clear the projectile could have caused a lot of damage to a human being.
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“It was close,” acknowledged Ellis. “It’s scary because it pierced it pretty good. It’s a heck of a dent.”
Toronto Police, he said, were quick to the scene and took it seriously, with a view of trying to determine what direction this slug came from.“They were not sure, but it could have been from an apartment building in Toronto.”
Or maybe a nearby park? Only the shooter knows for sure.
It’s unclear if it was a shot aimed at somebody in another location or more of a shot in the air that eventually came down to the ground? What’s understood is how dangerous this was and how tragic it could have been.
“People told me I should buy a lottery ticket,” Jackson teased. “I am just glad myself and the Tim Hortons worker were not struck.”
But somebody shot this bullet from either a handgun or rifle from somewhere.
Toronto Police Const. Caroline de Kloet said officers are “looking into it further” and there were “no reported injuries.” Who knows, perhaps the shooter will get a knock on the door from police who have the bullet as evidence.
While this could have turned out far worse, it was still nearly a bullseye.